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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472515">the one who got away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows'>boundinshallows (museme87)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Peaky Blinders (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Road Trips, Second Chances, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:47:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy and May go on an overnight trip to purchase a horse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>May Carleton/Tommy Shelby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Peaky Blinders Rare Pair Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the one who got away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Peaky Blinders Rare Pair Bingo for the square "getaways/vacations." I added the bonus prompt "sharing a bed/there was only one bed," but finessed the trope a bit.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The suite Tommy’s secured is sumptuous, though she hadn’t expected anything less from him. Perhaps once, but he’s come a long way since he’d stood in her drawing room, perplexed at her mention of the guest wing. They both have grown, she supposes, though some things have changed so little since then.</p><p>May removes her hat and carefully pats the back of her hair, ensuring all the pins remain in place. Behind her, Tommy clears his throat. He gestures for her coat, hand outstretched.</p><p>“Yes, thank you,” she says as he slides it off her shoulders.</p><p>While Tommy drapes it carefully on the high-back chair—in a way he hadn’t his own coat—May takes in the furnishings. It’s a pitiful attempt to distract herself from the situation at hand.</p><p>It was a good day, but she feels the tension gathering as it comes to a close. She worried this trip over and over again in her mind since Tommy proposed it weeks ago. Once she’d nearly sicked-up in the stables, so fraught from not knowing how to behave. And truly, she ought not suspect anything will happen. Tommy made his decision years ago; it mattered little that his wife was dead. She, more than anyone, understands how long such a flame can burn.</p><p>Still, her heart was foolishly hopeful when he began to visit again, made only worse when they rode together. Tommy offered his smiles easily sometimes in a way that sent her chest alight. To temper such imprudence, she reminded herself that rumor had it he fucked a Russian duchess. If she couldn’t hold a candle to the Irish woman, she certainly couldn’t compare to royalty. Certainly not if the unsavory gossip about the woman were true.</p><p>However, May refuses to sulk. Or at least refuses to do so in his or anyone else’s company. She recovered from these silly little feelings once before—hell, she recovered from the loss of her <em>husband</em> whom she loved twice the world over—and she would do so again. Regardless of the number of overnight trips they took together on business, May would not allow herself to be shaken.</p><p>“So?” Tommy asks, pouring two glasses of whisky.</p><p>“Hmm?” She blinks and picks up the thread of the conversation. “Well I suppose that depends. He’s a fine stallion. Markings are exquisite. But he’ll never place.”</p><p>Tommy passes her a whisky and sits in one of the chairs. Draped against the cushions with his legs spread, he looks entirely at home. Tommy takes out a cigarette. The fleeting memories of a handful of mornings in her bedroom bubble to the surface of her mind. He was a vision at dawn, dressed down to his pants as he smoked in her chair. May laid on her belly across the bed, and they talked for an hour or more about the horses running in the Derby.</p><p>He thought her clever, he said. She held her own. When she got one over on him, he always pointed at her with his index and middle fingers and grinned. Once when she bested him in an argument, he crawled back between her thighs and rocked against her until they both were ready again. She recalls her pitiful protests about the client she was to meet, how Tommy said he didn’t care, how he whispered filth against her neck as he slid into her with one unyielding thrust.</p><p>As happy as she felt those mornings with him, she reminds herself what came of it all in the end.</p><p>Taking a sip of her drink, May curls the glass against her and steps towards the window, twitching back the curtains to look at the street below.</p><p>“And for bloodstock?”</p><p>“I would imagine there would be interest, yes,” she says, a bit distant even to her own ears. “I had no idea you were considering.”</p><p>When their eyes meet, Tommy shrugs. “Why not?”</p><p>“I can certainly make some inquiries.”</p><p>He nods, and that’s it. The conversation seems to be settled. May suspects that they’ll return to see the stallion tomorrow before driving home. It’s likely a formality at this point—Tommy knows what he likes in a horse—but he won’t want to seem overly eager.</p><p>“When shall we meet in the morning then?” she asks.</p><p>Tommy’s brows knit. And it’s a sign of how long they’ve known each other, isn’t it, that she can read him so easily. She didn’t anticipate this in truth, never entertained it as anything more than the fantasy of a lonely woman. And yet, just now, it perhaps doesn’t feel wholly a surprise either. These things never are with Tommy, are they? He made that clear at The Garrison on that first day in Small Heath—Thomas Shelby had no qualms about ill-mannered propositions.</p><p>No qualms about pressing against the seams of her poorly mended heart.</p><p>“That’s quite presumptuous of you.”</p><p>He nods in agreement, giving her that much at least. “Gambling’s in me blood.”</p><p>They lock gazes until May can’t bear it any longer. Lips thinning, she glances away, torn and angry. They maintained an air of respectability between them all this time. He never brought his wife to her home; she never scored him raw for his choice, for making her feel as if those months only meant something to her.</p><p><em>Chin up, my dove</em>, her grandmother told her when she was a girl. <em>Never let them see your tears.</em></p><p>Oh May <em>tries. </em>Her eyes are dry, but her chest aches in such a way that crying might feel less humiliating. She turns her head anyway, looks back out the window until he’s only a shade in her periphery. She ought to have kept him there, not in this room but in her <em>life</em>. Peripheral. But she hadn’t, and now <em>this</em>.</p><p>She exhales unsteadily. Tommy must mistake it for something else, must read meaning into it that May herself isn’t sure is there. But he stands, delicately placing his glass on the table before approaching her with more care than she tells herself she needs.</p><p>“May.”</p><p>When Tommy places his strong hands on her upper arms, May permits it. He always touched her with care despite all the damage his hands wrought over the years. The irony appealed to her every time his calloused hands pressed into delicate flesh.</p><p>Now she allows herself to be turned and gathered up into his arms. She keeps her eyes downcast though; she hasn’t the fortitude to do what needs to be done if she loses herself in the blue of him.</p><p>“Forget that,” Tommy says softly. “I’ll book a room, eh? It’s alright.”</p><p>He holds her there, not pulling her near but not stepping away either. As much as she did not appreciate his impertinence, May feels herself ruffling at the idea that he would sleep elsewhere.</p><p>But to give in to his desires…</p><p>Yet, to <em>not</em>…</p><p>“I won’t be played with,” she tells him, her finger slipping just under his shirt placket.</p><p>His thumb skims across the warming skin of her cheek.</p><p>“Who’s playing?”</p><p>“And I won’t accept another woman’s leavings.”</p><p>Tommy takes it as implicit consent to move forward with this. His chapped lips press against each temple, placing a kiss on perfumed hair. Then he pulls her to him with firm hands on the small of her back and kisses her head.</p><p>“You’re not my second choice,” he tells her. “No more than I’m yours.”</p><p>For all she knows, it’s a lie; trust is an unsteady thing between them. It has been ever since he promised to find her and then hadn’t until a fortnight later, only to bear bad news. But all that feels momentarily alright, she realizes. May can feel him half-stiff against her belly, and it makes her ache between her thighs.</p><p>She hasn’t had anyone since him. She was too lonely for men who were long since gone. Though not for a lack of trying, her fingers only offered so much relief when her desire sparked. But the promise of him inside her again, of shuddering hard around him as she loses herself for those few fleeting moments, it makes the prospect of a lie so much easier to swallow.</p><p>“May—”</p><p>“Yes,” she says without hesitation finally looking him in the eyes.</p><p>She rises a bit on her toes, his height giving him a little advantage, and kisses him with a degree of urgency that isn’t returned. It’s not for a lack of want, judging by the way he cups her jaw and almost unconsciously rubs the pads of his fingers into her hair.</p><p>It frustrates her. Having decided to go through with it, May doesn’t want to wait for fear that he’ll slip through her fingers once more. She cares little how he interprets her eagerness. In the past, he was rather fond of it, but perhaps he’s spent enough time with her sort of people that he finds her too willing to spread her legs.</p><p>“Tommy,” she pleads.</p><p>“Shh,” he says against her lips. “We have time, love. We have time.”</p>
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